Chapter 20: The Twelve Shapes of the Yellow Emperor

  The princess was surprised by Liu Bian's confidence and did not refuse, agreeing to it in one breath. After all, he was her own brother, and she didn't want him to die young either. If she could help Liu Bian a bit, she would be more than happy to do so.

  However, when she learned that Liu Bian wanted her help in translating the silk book "Huangdi Twelve Shapes", Princess Wannian furrowed her brow.

  "I recognize all the characters, but I may not necessarily be able to understand their meaning."

  Liu Bian was puzzled, if he could recognize characters, what couldn't be figured out?

  The princess of Wan Nian sighed and told a story from her past.

  When the previous emperor was alive, in order to revitalize the Great Han, he spent a lot of thought. One of them was to build Hongdu Gate Academy. The Hongdu Gate Academy specializes in recruiting talents who are proficient in calligraphy and painting. Many people think that this is the previous emperor's indulgence, but in fact, the previous emperor wanted to find talents who can master ancient characters without drawing attention from the aristocratic families. These people were found to decipher some ancient books written in ancient characters collected by the royal family, hoping to find a way to revitalize the Great Han from within.

  The silk book "Huangdi Twelve Shapes" was a goal that the previous emperor had placed great hopes on. At that time, the previous emperor had already sent someone to translate these ancient texts, but they couldn't understand their meaning, like heavenly books, and could only give up and put them away again. Then, he shifted his attention to the "Taiping Jing".

  "Wait, is there a modern Chinese translation of 'Huangdi's Twelve Shapes'?"

  "Of course." Princess Wan said with certainty: "The last version was copied by me personally. I remember it very clearly."

  "But this version of 'Huangdi's Twelve Shapes' has gone missing."

  The Princess Wan was shocked, her face turned extremely ugly. Liu Bian's face didn't look good either. He thought of his experience last night at the East Watchtower and realized that there was more to this than meets the eye. The previous emperor had gone through so much trouble to secretly translate the "Huangdi Twelve Classics", but couldn't decipher its secrets. Now someone had stolen this manual, which meant that someone knew how to decipher it, in other words, the previous emperor's hard work had all been for nothing.

  Every move of the previous emperor was under their watchful eyes, even the establishment of the Hongdu Gate Academy might be one of their plots. Their goal is to understand these ancient books collected in the palace, and "Huangdi Twelve Classics" is one of them, so they directly stole the original instead of copying it, showing how urgent they were.

  Liu Bian felt a chill rise up his back. Without a doubt, the minor official who dared to question Lu Zhi yesterday was one of them, and there were probably many more like him. Considering that Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu each held positions as commander of the Western Garden's eight military academies and deputy commander of the Tiger Guards respectively, and were responsible for palace security, including the Tiger Guards, Feathered Forest officials, and even the Imperial Secretariat, it was unknown how many of them were their informants.

  Will the Yuan family send someone to cut off their own heads in the middle of the night? Judging from Wang Yue and others' martial arts skills, it's not impossible.

  Liu Bian slowly regained his composure after a while: "Sister, since someone stole it away, it means that someone can understand it. Why can't you understand the 'Huangdi Twelve Forms'?"

  "There are too many implicit meanings, especially in terms of meridians." Princess Wan Nian hesitated and said: "I think maybe people who study medicine or practice Taoism can understand it."

  "Why say that?"

  "From the preface, it can be seen that "Huangdi Twelve Shapes" was written by Leigong, one of the three great divine doctors of Huangdi. Among the three great divine doctors, Yu Yu was skilled in acupuncture and moxibustion, and wrote "Huangdi Wai Jing"; Qi Bo was skilled in medicinal herbs and prescriptions, and wrote "Huangdi Nei Jing" and "Ben Cao". Leigong's writing of "Huangdi Twelve Shapes" is naturally related to his expertise in pulse diagnosis. The naming of the twelve shapes also has a lot to do with the military."

  "Army?"

  The Princess of Wan glanced at Liu Bian and patiently explained: "Huangdi and Yandi fought on the plains of Banquan, with bears, tigers, wolves, leopards, and other beasts as vanguards, and eagles, hawks, and other birds as banners. Among the twelve shapes, there are six beasts and four birds, leaving two shapes: a dragon and a phoenix. At that time, we guessed that this might be the cultivation method of the Twelve Armies. If it can be deciphered and the Huangdi Twelve Armies rebuilt, one could be invincible in battle like Huangdi in his heyday. Unfortunately, there was no one around the previous emperor who was proficient in pulse diagnosis to decipher the secrets within."

  Liu Bian somewhat understood. It's roughly the same as what he imagined, this "Huangdi Twelve Shapes" might be a boxing method or a cultivation technique from ancient times, similar to the later generation's Xingyiquan Twelve Shapes. These secret manuals for cultivation usually use cryptic language and can't be understood by outsiders.

  However, there are masters around him now, and maybe he can ask for some advice.

  "Sister, you translate it for me first, and I'll think of other ways."

  The princess agreed readily. She had translated it once before and still had some impression of it, so now she only needed to copy from the ancient book again, which didn't take much effort. In just half a day's work, she finished writing a new version.

  Holding the "Twelve Forms of the Yellow Emperor" that emitted a faint scent of ink, Liu Bian's heart was filled with hope.

  "Find Wang Yue and Zhang Xiang."

  ……

  "I have here a secret recipe passed down from ancient times, a total of twelve copies." Liu waved the paper in his hand: "However, I don't quite understand some parts. You are both the number one swordsman in the capital and a famous gun master, presumably you have both received true teachings. I hope you can enlighten me, even just a hint would be good."

  He smiled: "As a reward, I will grant you that complete manual."

  Wang Yue and Zhang Xiu's eyes widened as soon as they heard. As martial artists, they knew how precious the secret manual was. Martial arts were passed down orally, with methods not taught to outsiders, even more secretive than the transmission of Confucian classics. The oral formulas their masters had given them were only a few sentences, and if they could get a copy of an ancient secret manual, it would have an immeasurable impact on their martial arts skills. Even one or two more sentences might make them suddenly enlightened, opening up new horizons.

  "I am willing to serve Your Majesty."

  Liu Bian asked them to write down the passwords of their respective schools, and then compared them with the text on "Huangdi Twelve Shapes" to see if there were any similarities. With the help of Princess Wan, Liu Bian soon found similar texts.

  Wang Yue's swordsmanship mantra is very close to one of the sentences in the kite-shaped mantra, with only two different words. However, Princess Wan Nian said that these two words can be interchanged and have the same meaning. Zhang Xie's spear technique was somewhat unexpected, it turned out to be a wild boar shape rather than the phoenix shape he thought, and the word order was also slightly reversed.

  Zhang Xiu was very puzzled: "Strange, Master clearly said that our shooting technique is called 'Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix', how can it be 'Qilin Shape'?"

  "Then take another look at the diagram." Liu Bian took out the original and let Zhang Heng look at the diagram on it. The text of "Huangdi's Twelve Meridians" was not much, except for the preface, all the text was explaining the diagrams, without diagrams, there were only oral formulas, similarly unable to understand the meaning inside.

  As soon as Zhang Xiu saw the first diagram of her form, she was stunned: "This... this is the guiding technique I practiced when I just entered the sect."